Next in Line (William Warwick, #5)(77)

Sir John raised his baton and waited for total silence before he allowed the orchestra to strike up. The attentive audience were enraptured from the first note, and seemed to know every demiquaver of every concerto, as well as every overture that cascaded down from the stage. William ignored what was happening on the stage as he continued to scan the auditorium. His gaze settled for a moment on a woman seated in the front row of one of the loggia boxes in the second tier. Beside her sat a young man he’d seen at the Frans Hals opening a few weeks earlier.

Several times during the next two hours, William wished Beth was standing by his side enjoying Rossini, Brahms and Benjamin Britten. He promised himself he would bring Beth next year – if it wasn’t cancelled in memory of … But he didn’t allow his attention to waver for a moment, although he found it difficult not to join in when all those around him began lustily singing ‘See the Conquering Hero Come’, followed by yet more rapturous applause.

Sir John waited for the tumult to die down before he raised his baton once again, to allow mezzo-soprano Sarah Walker to render the opening bars of ‘Rule Britannia’, and the audience to become the largest chorus on earth. Then the moment came, the moment they had all been waiting for, the moment William had been dreading. He prayed Faulkner was wrong.

The conductor turned around, faced the audience and raised his baton, inviting more than five thousand untrained voices to become his raucous choir. As they delivered the opening line of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, William could spot only four people who weren’t joining in.

The music reached its climactic conclusion and the audience cheered wildly, demanding an encore. Sir John turned to face them and bowed, smiling briefly before he marched off the stage, but to no one’s surprise he returned a few moments later to an even louder reception, if that were possible. A hush descended as he raised his baton for the last time.

William waited for the final gasp of ‘Britons never never never shall be slaves’ and was breathing a sigh of relief when he heard what sounded like an explosion in the distance, muffled by the sound of crashing cymbals and the roars of delight as the orchestra rose to receive a ten-minute standing ovation.

William immediately charged towards the nearest exit and out onto the pavement to find Rebecca was a yard ahead of him, with Jackie following close behind.

He could hear a siren in the distance, and turned to see the flashing lights of an ambulance speeding towards him. The Gold Commander stood in the middle of the road, hands on hips, eyes scanning in every direction.

William ran across the road as a second ambulance skidded to a halt a few yards from him. The back door was thrown open and two green-clad paramedics jumped out and were directed by a group of armed officers, who had seemingly materialized from nowhere, towards the Albert Memorial. William chased after them through a cloud of smoke to the far side of the park.

William could only watch as a motionless body was lifted gently off the ground and laid on a stretcher. He recognized the victim as the man who’d been embracing his fellow officer on the steps of the Albert Memorial earlier that evening.

The young man was carried gently back towards the waiting ambulance, and moments later its doors closed before it sped away, the traffic lights still green. Holbrooke had already arranged for every traffic light between the Albert Hall and the Brompton Hospital to remain green. He even knew the name of the doctor who would be waiting for his patient. The Gold Commander left nothing to chance.

A few minutes later the revellers began streaming out of the Albert Hall to make their way home, entirely oblivious to what had just happened a couple of hundred yards away.

They couldn’t have failed to notice an unusually large police presence, with an ambulance, back doors open, parked on the opposite side of the road. Some stopped and stared, while others hurried on.

‘A lucky escape,’ said a voice, and William turned to see Holbrooke standing beside him.

‘Will the young officer be all right?’ were William’s first words, as the ambulance reached the traffic lights, sirens blaring, lights flashing.

‘They don’t know yet. Just be thankful he’s still alive.’

A few yards away a young woman, the other half of the embracing couple, was sitting on the ground, head in hands, weeping. Rebecca was kneeling by her side trying to comfort her.

‘Thank God he didn’t get inside the Hall,’ said William.

‘He got far too close for my liking,’ said Gold as the boisterous crowd continued to hail taxis, climb on buses or head for the nearest tube station, many of them still singing. ‘I never thought he’d find it possible to get past so many of my officers. He was finally spotted by the young Sergeant who’d been sitting on the steps of the memorial for more than eight hours. He challenged him, but the suicide bomber turned around and started to run away, while my man chased after him without any thought for his own safety. He’d nearly caught up with the terrorist when he blew himself up.’ He paused as the ambulance turned right into Exhibition Road and disappeared out of sight. ‘Fortunately, his colleague was far enough away when the bomb went off to avoid injury. What you won’t know is that they were engaged.’

William wondered if either of them would be serving in the Met in a year’s time. One injured physically, the other mentally. Another siren brought him back to the real world.

‘So it looks as if Faulkner’s status has moved from D4 to A1,’ he said.